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My new 2014 Mac mini is a real veil-lifter, soundstage opener and all-around puncher beyond its pricepoint

wgscott

By wgscott
in Music Servers

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Superdad

Superdad

Posted
Posted
If it's true, it's great. Need also non soldered SSD, and maybe a quad core instead only 2, but it's not as bad as I thought first...

 

Oh, also a fanless build, but no way with Intel.

 

The SSD is a plug in module, like what they are using in the MacPro:

SSD module.jpeg

 

As for fanless, that will have to wait until next year's Broadwell chips.

UpTone Audio LLC

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Superdad

Superdad

Posted
Posted

Still waiting to see pics, but it is looking like the Apple Store people are giving out bum info. It is not looking good. They did do away with the thumb holes for twisting and removing the bottom (that is for sure--you can see the pic in Apple's QuickStart guide on their site). And I found one person in the UK who I think actually bought one and had this to say:

 

"I can confirm the ram is now soldered to the logic board on all 2014 Mac Mini's. A suction cup is also required to pop open the bottom cover which then exposes the large circular Antenna plate. There is only room for 1 hard drive in the last models Upper bay with the Lower bay taken up by the flash drive on a separate PCIe board. The Flash Drive has the same design and dimensions as the current PCIe Flash drives found on the rest of the Mac range."

 

Does not bode well for people being able to easily install my Mac mini DC-conversion/Linear Fan Controller Kit in the new generation of machines.

Buy a 2012 QuadCore i7 minis while you can!

UpTone Audio LLC

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stevebythebay

stevebythebay

Posted
Posted

Just wondering: are there likely to be differences in I/O performance for the varying sized PCI-e SSD drives? In the past, for MacBooks at least, that was the case, with the 512GB version beating out others. Not clear why.

Steve Schaffer

Grimm MU1 / dCS Vivaldi Upsampler - APEX DAC - Clock / Spectral DMC-30SV preamp / Spectral Anniversary monoblocks / Wilson Audio Alexia V /  Wilson Lōkē subs / Shunyata Everest / Shunyata Omega interconnects, power cables, Ethernet / Shunyata Altaira / Uptone EtherREGEN switch / Cybershaft OP21A-D / Uptone JS2 LPS / HRS racks - Vortex footers - damping plates

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goldsdad

goldsdad

Posted
Posted
I just gave in and ordered a quad core Mini. The only aspect that I really couldn't get over was not having a FW port on the 2014 model (and some perfectly good FW drives sitting here idle).

 

Apple sell a TB to FW adapter, but some people have reported particular bus-powered drives not working with it.

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Superdad

Superdad

Posted
Posted
Apple sell a TB to FW adapter, but some people have reported particular bus-powered drives not working with it.

 

Bus-powered FireWire drives… Yuck, phooey! Bad idea except for laptop travelers.

 

BTW, iFixIt.com has already done a teardown of the new Retina 5K iMac, and the PCIe flash/SSD it uses is the same SanDisk PCIe SSD as used in the Late 2013 Retina 13" MacBook Pro (and MB Airs?). So I expect that is also what is being optionally offered for the 2014 minis.

UpTone Audio LLC

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Cycleman

Cycleman

Posted
Posted
I replaced my wall-wart-powered firewire drive with a bus-powered one. Major improvement. yeoohp.

 

Wow, a real, significant improvement?!?

 

You know, I realize I can try that too.

 

Curious, curious, curious.

 

Dave, who is using a Samsung SSD and OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure for his MAIN music FW drive

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Music is love, made audible.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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wgscott

wgscott

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Wow, a real, significant improvement?!?

 

You know, I realize I can try that too.

 

Curious, curious, curious.

 

Dave, who is using a Samsung SSD and OWC Mercury Elite Pro enclosure for his MAIN music FW drive

 

My story is posted here somewhere. Briefly, I read Chris' review of the Oyen bus-powered firewire drive, and went to the website, saw that they had a 3.5" wallwart-powered drive with the oxford chipset, etc, and thought that this would have to be an improvement. The first wall-wart power supply was defective and damaged the drive. Eventually they exchanged it. The second one works, but the wall-wart polluted my powerline to such an extent that it corrupted the data my solar power inverters put on the line. In addition, disk arbitration would often fail upon reboot of this drive. I now have what Chris recommended, which is the 2.5" portable firewire drive and enclosure. It has worked absolutely flawlessly for a few years, and streams 1080p movies flawlessly as well. It is a vast improvement over the corresponding powered drive.

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f7-disk-storage-music-library-storage/why-you-should-never-buy-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-firewire-drive-8124/#post100877

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Superdad

Superdad

Posted
Posted
The second one works, but the wall-wart polluted my powerline to such an extent that it corrupted the data my solar power inverters put on the line.

 

Of course your problems could have been solved with a decent quality PS. So you were not recommending bus-powered drives based on SQ. I guess we have different priorities, since the idea of allowing my AC line for my audio sysem to do double-duty as a data carrier is anathema to me.

 

BTW, I use and recommend OWC 3.5" Mercury Elite Pro driive enclosures (empty or pre populated). And they consistently come with a resonably clean SMPS that have never failed on me. (These drives are shared on my network, not directly attached to my i7 music mini. No drives are attached to that machine.)

UpTone Audio LLC

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wgscott

wgscott

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Well, it is an objectively quantifiable and reproducible consequence of the external power supply (as opposed to subjective impressions about how different drives sound, which you have to admit is a wee bit controversial.) Whether or not that impacts sound quality may be a matter for debate, but assuming that line noise is important, this becomes relevant to sound quality. In addition, a drive that is unreliable impacts sound quality insofar as you can't get your music off an unmounted drive.

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Superdad

Superdad

Posted
Posted
Well, it is an objectively quantifiable and reproducible consequence of the external power supply (as opposed to subjective impressions about how different drives sound, which you have to admit is a wee bit controversial.) Whether or not that impacts sound quality may be a matter for debate, but assuming that line noise is important, this becomes relevant to sound quality. In addition, a drive that is unreliable impacts sound quality insofar as you can't get your music off an unmounted drive.

 

Sure, but all you posted at first was:

"I replaced my wall-wart-powered firewire drive with a bus-powered one. Major improvement. yeoohp."

 

But it turned out the trouble was with a crap wall wart PS. That does not hold up as an argument against my assertion that having a FireWire drive drawing bursts of current off the computer's PS is a sonic detriment.

UpTone Audio LLC

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Cycleman

Cycleman

Posted
Posted
Sure, but all you posted at first was:

"I replaced my wall-wart-powered firewire drive with a bus-powered one. Major improvement. yeoohp."

 

But it turned out the trouble was with a crap wall wart PS. That does not hold up as an argument against my assertion that having a FireWire drive drawing bursts of current off the computer's PS is a sonic detriment.

 

Well, perhaps it's not all that black-and-white, but more of a scale.

 

Mediocre = FW drive with poor quality power supply (greatest "sonic detriment")

Better = FW drive drawing power from the bus (less of a "sonic detriment")

Best = FW drive with better quality -- linear? -- power supply (least "sonic detriment" with FW drive)

 

So, assuming that progression is accurate, which may or may not be the case, going from Mediocre to Better is still an improvement, perhaps as Bill put it, a "major improvement."

 

Even if you're also correct, and there could be further improvement beyond that.

 

As I say, not black-and-white.

 

Dave, who reiterates the tag line of his signature something about subtleties which means black-and-white statements are really a mix called "grey" and is still testing out his MAIN system's improvements or not by changing his FW drive from inexpensive power supply to bus powered

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Music is love, made audible.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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wgscott

wgscott

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Sure, but all you posted at first was:

"I replaced my wall-wart-powered firewire drive with a bus-powered one. Major improvement. yeoohp."

 

But it turned out the trouble was with a crap wall wart PS. That does not hold up as an argument against my assertion that having a FireWire drive drawing bursts of current off the computer's PS is a sonic detriment.

 

But that does entail the assertion that you can hear it. (I cannot.)

 

Also, that bus-powered drive comes with an external power supply, so you can have the best of both worlds. (Since I hear no difference, I've elected to omit the external power supply).

 

I also can hear no difference between that and a wireless-mounted disk served by my Airport Extreme.

 

In any case, dismissing the bus-powered option ("phooey") struck me as a bit backward (hence "yeoohp").

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